Daughter of Black Lake Read online

  She heard the snap of a branch behind her and whipped around to see a boy a year older than she was. “Young Smith?” she said.

  Of course she knew him. Only three dozen of the bog dwellers were youths, and he was a tradesman, one of the high-ranking Smith clan—thirty-four strong, and easily the largest and most prosperous at Black Lake. He was the youngest of six brothers, born after a gap of six years, and the only brother not yet joined in union with a mate. His clan’s roundhouse, where they would celebrate that night, measured twice the breadth of any other. Inside, the low benches and sleeping pallets were heaped in skins and furs, and the shelves teemed with flagons and serving platters. His father—Old Smith—supplied the bulk of the accompaniments for the bog dwellers’ feasts. He fed and clothed a pair of orphan hands, an old woman without kin, and the family of a man crushed when an elm was felled. His wealth and generosity had established him as the uncontested First Man at Black Lake, and as such, he decided when the fields would be sowed and reaped, when the stores of grain and roots would be rationed, when an ox would be replaced or a ewe slaughtered and offered to the gods.

  Young Smith was already the tallest among the brothers, and though his bulk had yet to catch his height, his broad shoulders foretold the strength that would one day assist him in his clan’s forge. There was talk, too, that his father entrusted him alone with the most delicate bits of ironwork, that he accompanied his father, more so than his brothers, as he inspected the fields or adjudicated the bog dwellers’ grievances. He was a boy much discussed among Black Lake’s maidens—his assured future, also his muscled shoulders and forearms, his pleasing face.

  Devout took in his tentative mouth, his uncertain eyes, thick lashed as a doe’s. She could not claim friendship. She was a hand, and the hands and the tradesmen clans held themselves apart at Black Lake. Young Smith seldom spoke to her more than a few words called from the low-walled forge where he worked alongside his kin. Usually “fine day” or “the wheat looks promising,” though once she had wondered if he had said “the hearth is ablaze here, if you’re . . .” before his voice trailed away. She had given little thought to him as other than a blacksmith of burgeoning skill. He ranked far above her, beyond her reach—a circumstance that was perhaps unfair given her usefulness as apprentice healer at Black Lake. And there was her piety, too. She bit her lip as she sometimes did at those moments when she recognized herself as prideful. Mother Earth expected humility.

  “I made something for you,” he said now. He held out his hand, and she saw a packet of folded leather about the size of a walnut.

  A blacksmith, a tradesman such as he, was offering a gift to a hand on this particular day? She took the packet.

  She unfolded the leather and into the bowl of her palm slipped a gleaming silver amulet strung through with a loop of gut. She drew a finger over the raised detail of the arms of the Mother Earth’s cross at the amulet’s center. She touched the outer ring. How had he accomplished the detail—swirled tendrils as delicate and intricate as a fern, a spider’s web, a damselfly’s gossamer wings? Not in nature, not in all the clearing, woodland, or bog had she seen the handiwork surpassed. Never had she conceived that other than Mother Earth was capable of such beauty. Though it was small, the amulet weighed mightily on her palm. “Young Smith,” she whispered and raised her lit face to his. “It’s magnificent.”

  He held her gaze and heat rose through her.

  She put her fingers to her lips and then to the earth, that familiar gesture, giving herself time. He had followed her to the woodland to give the amulet to her. But why not wait until the feast? Was he wary of how the gift might be received? Could so regarded a tradesman be as unsure of himself as that? She teetered on the edge of telling him that she had never imagined such perfection, and truthfully, the amulet did bring grace to mind, otherworldliness. But then it occurred to her that perhaps he was ashamed of his fondness for a hand and could not bear the thought of an audience. But if that was so, why give her the amulet at all? Why not give it to Reddish—who was the prize of the Hunter clan, the tradesmen clan that ranked second only to the Smiths at Black Lake. Reddish, who had milky skin and hair that glinted sunshine as spellbinding as fire. Reddish, who possessed a full belly and a doting father, an endless ability to attract the favor of the gods. Reddish, who last Feast of Purification was given a comb carved from ash and etched with prettily arched ferns by one of the Carpenter brothers. She had returned the comb and made a habit of lingering at Young Smith’s forge, her neck arched in laughter, her throat exposed.

  Devout closed her fingers over the gleaming bit of silver. She deserved the cross more than Reddish. Reddish did not care about the magic of Mother Earth’s roots and leaves and blooms. More than once, Devout had watched as Reddish stooped in tribute, her fingertips not quite grazing the earth at her feet, no look of reverence on her face.

  Devout brought the fist clutching the amulet to her lips. With that gesture, Young Smith grew bold and said, “I thought you could wear it tonight while you collect for the feast.”

  She held the amulet against the hollow at the base of her neck.

  “Let me show you,” he said.

  The loop of gut was doubled in such a way that by sliding the knots, it could be expanded to twice its size. He slipped the loop over her head and adjusted the knots so that the amulet hung at her throat.

  She imagined going from roundhouse to roundhouse as she collected for the evening’s feast, the amulet in plain view on her neck. At each door, eyes would fall to the gleaming silver, and then a little smile would show what the matriarch handing over a clay flagon of wheaten beer had figured out. Devout—a hand—had drawn the attentions of Young Smith. He had recognized her piety, her skill, her place as apprentice healer and chosen her above any other maiden at Black Lake.

  As Devout and Young Smith intruded on the woodland’s quiet with idle talk—the feast, the boar Young Hunter had speared, the late-night merriment to come—she felt moisture collect at her hairline. This, when in his absence, she had pulled her skin cape tighter against the woodland’s chill. When he wiped his brow, she saw that it glistened, no different from her own, and her heart fluttered. Oh, but he was humble as stone. And handsome, too—warm eyed, full lipped, broad shouldered—this boy she had never dared consider, this boy who had singled her out.

  Eventually he said, “I should go,” but his feet remained rooted.

  “It’ll be my first Feast of Purification.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Your second,” she said and thought herself daft. Boys attended the feast from the age of thirteen, and girls only after they began to bleed with the new moon.

  He nodded, and her eyes fell to the woodland floor.

  “Tonight, then?” he said.

  She forced herself to look up, but his warm eyes were on her and her gaze flitted to beyond his shoulder. “Tonight,” she said and lifted a hand to touch his arm, but too late. He had turned away.

  When she could no longer make out his retreating back, she again put her fingertips to her lips and then the woodland floor. Before she had fully straightened, she heard the song of a bullfinch—a string of quick chirps broken by a longer, lower one. It was Arc—a boy, just her age, whom she had sowed and reaped alongside since childhood—calling to her. Should she answer, repeating the song, as was their custom? She shook debris from the lower edge of her dress. No, not with Young Smith’s amulet hanging on her neck. But Arc, who took in the world around him, would follow her trail of disturbed underbrush and stones, and in no time, he would approach laughing, holding out a thread from her dress, a lump of dried mud fallen from her shoe, and so she worked the knots, loosening the amulet. She lifted it over her head and slipped it into the pocket of her cape. Then she answered his call, though what she really wanted was solitude, time to ponder Young Smith, his gift.

  Arc appeared before Devout, wrists extending we
ll past the rim of his skin cape and his toes poking from the scraps of hide laced around his feet. He plucked a twig from her hair and said, “I have a gift for you.” A teasing smile came to his mouth. “Guess what it is.”

  She lifted a shoulder.

  “It isn’t something I can give you at the feast,” he said.

  Despite the amulet settled in her pocket and a looming sense that keeping it hidden there was somehow deceitful, she smiled. She liked this game. She liked Arc, too, his lankiness; his flaxen hair; his quiet voice and pale, watchful eyes. She liked that he meant to give her a gift—nothing too precious, for, same as she, he was a hand. “Not a stone, then. Not a shell.”

  “It’s something begun before Fallow.”

  She again lifted a shoulder.

  “It’s something you want,” he said.

  What was it she wanted? A fertile Hope? A quiet moment to consider the amulet that weighed in her pocket? To sort through all that had just taken place with Young Smith?

  “You’ve kept to the edges of the woodland,” he said. “I like knowing my gift is something you’ve been looking for today.”

  “Sweet violets!” she exclaimed.

  “Come.”

  He led her across a dell of dormant ferns, up a wooded embankment, and along the high, bald ridge of red gritstone and thin soil called Edge. Here the wind blew in gusts, but they traveled at a brisk pace. Growing warm, Devout pushed her cape behind her shoulders so that it hung at her back.

  She took in the plain of fields nestled below; the abutting clearing and nine roundhouses; and then farther to the north, the woodland they had just left; and farther still, the bog. At its center, she could make out the dark pool of Black Lake. She marveled that the world stretched on and on, that all she knew of it was so small. She had been told she lived on a vast island but even from her high perch, she could see no evidence of the surrounding sea. She had been told, too, that the island was divided into territories, each ruled by a chieftain and inhabited by a particular tribe, perhaps fifteen territories in total, though an exact count was difficult to make with borders always shifting as old feuds erupted, as new alliances were struck.

  She looked to the west, could just make out the purple-gray shadow of the distant highlands. Those highlands formed a different territory and were settled by a different tribe and chieftain. Her tribe occupied the territory abutting the highlands, a sprawling lowland plain dotted with settlements much like Black Lake.

  The druids traveled the island, setting down roots in a particular settlement for a moon or two before moving on to the next. No chieftain knew the land, the history, the laws, the intricacies of the tribes the way the druids did. Nor was any chieftain able to divine the will of the gods. She thought of her tribe’s chieftain, whom they simply called Chieftain. He was mighty, wealthy, yes, yet even he would drop to bended knee in the presence of a druid, a true overlord.

  She would like to have lingered, gazing toward those highlands, imagining the sea that lay beyond. Today, though, her mind churned. The silver in her pocket. Arc’s promised gift. She galloped a few steps, fell again in line with him. Eventually they came to a stand of beech and, in their shadow, a bed of bluish-purple sweet violets, more than she had ever seen. Her breath caught at the sight, the idea that he had planted them for her.

  On their knees, as the sun fell lower in the sky, Devout and Arc gathered blooms and leaves, careful not to take too much, careful not to pinch off stems holding unopened flowers. Before that evening’s festivities, she would scrub herself with dried moss on the timber causeway that extended out over the bog’s pool, lather her hair, and rinse it with the brew of chamomile so that it would glint in the firelight. Most of all, though, she needed to think about how beholden she had made herself to Arc by gathering his sweet violets, to decide whether she should return Young Smith’s amulet or wear it for all to see. It seemed as momentous a decision as she would ever make.

  “I’ve still got to prepare for tonight,” she said. As the words left her mouth, her eyes fell to her laden sack. Arc would always bring her sweet violets. He would always bring her joy. At that moment, he laid his hand on her cheek, and she leaned her head slightly, putting weight on his palm. She took three breaths, strange breaths, and felt jittery, light-headed.

  “I’ll go, then,” he said, smiling.

  Once he was gone, she slumped onto the trunk of a fallen beech. Had Young Smith set her reeling in quite the same way? Was that reasonable to ask when, as far back as she could remember, she had toiled in the fields with Arc? She knew she was prideful, aspiring. With the amulet on her palm, she had been uncharitable toward Reddish, jealous in truth. Was it only pride that had driven her to so recklessly want the amulet, to desire Young Smith? She sat there, stroking leaf litter and decay. She whispered to Mother Earth, promising humility and the amulet returned to Young Smith until she better understood her mind.

  She turned her thoughts to the words she would speak to Young Smith and reached into the pocket of her cape, anticipating the craftsmanship, the grace. Her fingers felt only hide, the threads holding the pocket in place. She probed each corner, the emptiness. She held open the pocket and looked, but the amulet was not there.

  She fell to her hands and knees, hunting among leaf litter as the sun fell lower still, and then grazed the horizon. She galloped down the steep slope of Edge—feet flying, stumbling, catching herself. At the place where Young Smith had given her the amulet, she dropped again to her knees and searched until the sun was gone, until there was scarcely time to make it back to the clearing and begin the collection rounds with the other maidens—her hair dull and tangled, her skin ripe with the odor of panic and toil.

  She wept, face in her hands, but only for a moment. Then she wept as she ran through the woodland and then across the clearing to her roundhouse and the fresh, sweet scent of the rushes newly laid over the earthen floor, spread there in deference to Mother Earth.

  What would Devout say to Young Smith? How would she explain the cross that did not rest against her throat, that she had not returned to him? Oh, how he would despise her, she who had lost his prize.

  5.

  DEVOUT

  Nine maidens clustered outside Devout’s roundhouse, chatting excitedly as they awaited the start of the Feast of Purification. She hung back at the pack’s rear, her cape tightly bound at her neck. She counted as she breathed, working to slow a heart not yet settled from riffling through brush and debris and stumbling homeward from the heights of Edge. The collection began, as always, with the lowliest roundhouses, and, quite truthfully, Devout’s household was lowly. Unlike the others at Black Lake, it was not a clan united by blood but rather a ragtag group of eleven that had come together piecemeal. Her mother had taken a hand with a single brother as her mate. That brother was poisoned by the same pottage of mushrooms, barley, and venison that had caused Devout’s father to grip his belly and shit and vomit, and then grow yellow and convulse, until breath came no more. By similar misfortune, each member of the household—Devout, her mother, Old Man, an orphan called Sullen, another widow called Second Hand Widow, and her brood of six—lacked the net of kin with whom they would otherwise reside.

  Reddish counted to three, and the maidens called out, “Mother Earth is coming.” Devout’s mother appeared in the doorway and, as was their custom, said, “Welcome, Mother Earth. Abide with us.” She held out a small loaf. The maidens accepted the offering toward their feast, and in return filed through the doorway. They walked sunwise around the blazing firepit at the center of the roundhouse, a solemn procession that prepared a household to receive Mother Earth. As she paraded, Devout glanced toward her mother and saw her bewilderment that Devout trailed, bedraggled, at the pack’s rear.

  The next household was again small in number, and the maidens were neither surprised nor disappointed when they left with a second meager loaf. The two remaining hand househol
ds promised more. Each had been blessed with fertility and was large enough that the clan could weather misfortune come to a few. The first household, for instance, bore the burden of a twelve-year-old blind boy called Lark without hesitation, perhaps because he sang sweetly, perhaps because he prepared the clan’s meals with surprising expertise. From that household, the maidens gleefully collected a cauldron of Lark’s barley flavored with sorrel, and from the next, a sizable vessel of the butter the hands had mostly gone without for the final moon of Fallow. They made their parade, then moved on to the five roundhouses belonging to the tradesmen clans, first to the Tanners, where they knew to keep their hopes in check. While any tradesman had more to spare than a hand, the Tanners were known misers. And more, Old Tanner had not a single brother, and of the seven children his mate had birthed only two survived. The woman produced a flagon and, with chin tipped high, handed it to Sullen. This, when the maidens rightly knew it would hold mead rather than the preferred wheaten beer.

  “No doubt, only half-full,” Sullen said.

  “We’ll fare better with the rest of the tradesmen clans,” Reddish said.

  True to her words, at the Carpenter roundhouse, Old Carpenter’s mate held out not one but two rounds of hard cheese, proving her clan’s generosity and wealth, underscoring the success they had trading the wheels they crafted. The maidens went next to the Shepherd roundhouse and were given two flagons of wheaten beer when one was sufficient; surely Old Shepherd’s mate had witnessed the generosity of the Carpenters. Brimming now with expectation, the maidens moved on to the Hunters, an even more prosperous clan headed by Reddish’s father, Old Hunter, and grown in number in recent years to twenty-two. What might Old Hunter’s mate provide to outdo the Shepherds’ two flagons? The maidens departed the Hunter roundhouse, weighted with two more flagons of beer. This, when Young Hunter had already speared the boar the maidens would eat. As they approached their final stop, Reddish settled a flagon in the crook of her arm and said, “Wait and see. We’ll get at least the same from the Smiths.”